The Chosen

by J. R. Ward

  "Yeah, and I'm here with the Goose," he muttered as he took another drink. "Not half bad..."

  Unfortunately, his mind remained stubbornly, unacceptably, clear. And that meant he was being triggered by too much, his emotions getting a disproportionate amount of airtime.

  Which was to say they were on his radar screen at all.

  He hated feeling anything, true?

  Trying to engage his gray matter in something, anything else, he fired up the Internet and decided to monitor some of the human news outlets. That was always worth a laugh. The shit those motherfuckers could get themselves worked up over was just incredible--and then inevitably they ended up yelling at each other through their computers.

  Truth was nuanced. Hysteria anything but.

  After idling through CNN.com, Fox News, and TMZ.com, he ended up on YouTube watching McKamey Manor videos, which was one of his absolutely favorite things to do, and which did, as usual, cheer him up a little. And it was after about a half hour of that when a notification flared on the bottom of the screen, indicating an email had come through to him.

  With a frown, he went over to Outlook and opened the thing up.

  Well, well, well, good ol' Damn Stoker had posted something new.

  V smiled and swallowed another healthy load of Goose as he hopped on the blog that he'd been following for the last month. It was new on the paranormal scene, written by a guy who seemed to be a cross between an investigative reporter and a fang fucker.

  I.e., a human who was determined to prove the existence of vampires.

  They were so amusing to watch as they twisted and turned at the end of their lexicon of falsities, repeating all kinds of lies and bullshit that humans had been using to mythologize that which actually existed in their midst.

  Good times, good times.

  Talk about YouTube vids. There were only about a hundred thousand snippets, sound bites, and soliloquies on that Internet platform purporting to show actual vampires vampiring in their vampware. Driving Vamps-wagons--

  Okay, it was possible the alcohol was kicking in.

  But Damn Stoker was different, and that was why V had tagged the motherfucker's not-so-rambling ramblings.

  He actually had the goods.

  Somehow, the guy had gotten video of the showdown out at the Brownswick School for Girls, the one where the Lessening Society and the Brotherhood had met and danced in the moonlight, so to speak. It was your typical, jumpy-jerky iCrap-shot footage, but there was enough to suggest that something big and otherworldly might have happened on the abandoned campus.

  Fortunately, the Omega had done a stellar clean-up job after the fighting, and what the recording showed was nothing that couldn't arguably have been generated on someone's computer. Lesser blood on the ground, after all, looked like shadows thrown on grass or black paint or old motor oil.

  Good thing it wasn't Smell-O-Vision or bitch would have been making people sick.

  And of course, the fact that there was nothing presently on the grounds was a big invalidator, that little storage house Rhage's beast had eaten having been ready to collapse anyway, just like a lot of the facilities there.

  Still, this guy who was hiding behind a not-so-clever alias was on V's radar. He'd posted a lot of links to other content on YouTube, mostly blah-blah-blahs of other humans who swore up and down that they had had contact with "real" vampires or, again, more of those bumpy, night footage clips of fights or figures moving in and out of doorways wearing capes. But again, it was the shit from that abandoned school campus that was a marker--and also the fact that the guy's grammar was good, he didn't overuse caps or do this !!!!!!!!!!!!!! at the end of his sentences, and there was a general professionalism to it all.

  None of which was the kind of thing the race needed.

  Ridic humans with artificial incisors and walking sticks with skulls on them? Fine. Give V a hundred million of those. A canny, more-Scully-than-Mulder type who seemed to be systematically scouring the Internet and debunking the bunk while isolating those few instances when something had actually happened?

  Not good news for a species that wanted to keep hiding in plain sight.

  "Another video..." V murmured as he scanned the new post. "What do we have tonight, Damn? Wrong season for Halloween."

  V bypassed the write-up that gave context to whatever was on the link, and just fired the thing up.

  At first, he wasn't sure what he was looking at--oh, okay, black-and-white security cam footage of a parking lot at night. Car entering and turning around...parking, but not turning its engine off going by the subtle puffs of condensation out the back.

  V took another draw off his glass and patted around his desk for a hand-rolled. No luck. He needed to--

  "Oh...hello there, Mr. Latimer."

  As both doors opened, he recognized the male who emerged from the passenger side. It was Trez. And well, well, well...a female got out from behind the wheel, one with dark hair and civilian clothes. Impossible to see the face as she was looking down like she was trying not to slip on the ice, but the body was good.

  Maybe the poor SOB was drowning his sorrows the old-fashioned way.

  Trez walked around the car, and met her in front. The two of them talked for a minute--

  "Shit."

  V shook his head and then squeezed the bridge of his nose. Then he hit pause, went back a little, and replayed things.

  The female just up and disappeared, dematerializing into thin air. And then Trez got behind the wheel and drove off like nothing had happened.

  V scrolled up and read the bumph that Damn had posted: local souvenir shop across from the Storytown--which was, if memory served, a mere half mile down from Sal's Restaurant. The footage was the property of the shop, of course, but the owner had forwarded it to Damn with permission to post. No authorities had been contacted, and there was a statement from the owner, in full quotes like this was a newspaper article, that "Nothing has been altered on the recording."

  Vishous watched the clip two or three more times, and told himself to chill. What the hell was someone going to do with this? Go to the local CBS station and get them to air it as an expose? It didn't really prove anything--other than the fact that sex was an effective, short-term painkiller when it came to the grieving process.

  No one was going to believe the vid hadn't been spliced.

  It was fine.

  But Damn was starting to be a pain in the ass: Twice in one month, some human managed to post videos that actually showed shit going down?

  Sometimes, yes, conspiracy theorists got it right.

  And when they did that too many times in a row, they had to be contained, true?

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  The next location Xcor dematerialized to was not inhabited. Indeed, the little cottage and larger farmhouse beyond was a property that was well outside of Caldwell, and as he re-formed in the blowing snow, he was not surprised that there were no lights on, no fires burning, no figures in any windows in either abode.

  As he plodded forth, he passed by the cottage and entered the tree line, which, blessedly, offered him some relief from the driving wind. He had purchased both structures and the plot of land upon which they had been built for Layla and him. Indeed, he had had some fantasy--one that he had ne'er vocalized nor even much acknowledged unto himself--that the pair of them could shelter in the little cottage with its charm and its coziness whilst his males bunked down in the farmhouse across the way.

  Indeed, she had visited him here a couple of times, back when she had been heavy with her young and so resplendently beautiful, and he had found it nearly impossible not to express things that he had had no business feeling much less speaking of. And then she had called him on exactly where his emotions had evolved to, providing him with a crushingly accurate picture of the weakness he possessed in her favor.

  He had sent her away at that point. Said cruel things he had not meant because it had been the only manner by which to get her to leave him alone
. Some warrior he had been. A coward for her was more like it. But he had not been able to see any future for them, and he had begun to worry about her safety being so pregnant...and more than both of those, he had been terrified that she read him so well.

  Terrified at the power she held over him.

  Thus she had left. And then he had been captured.

  And now they had this little eye of the hurricane, this tiny peaceful stretch that was going to end as soon as he found what he was seeking.

  The farmhouse was boarded up on the first floor, all of the glass covered with plywood that had been tacked into place with nails his bastards had cheerfully struck. The front door was unlocked, however, and as he pushed it wide, the creak was so loud it drowned out even the storm's relentless growl.

  They had deliberately left the hinges un-oiled, the cheapest alarm system there was.

  His eyes adjusted to the darkness. The rooms had nothing in them except bare floorboards and cobwebs, but then his fighters had never cared for the trappings of civilization. Once one had survived the Bloodletter's war camp, one did not require even a roof over one's head. The lack of a dagger at your throat was sufficient.

  Taking out one of the flares from inside his jacket, he removed its cap and struck it, the hissing red light illuminating a fat circle around him.

  Xcor went through the downstairs rooms, his footfalls echoing in the empty, cold house. As he progressed, he held the flare out, inspecting all manner of walls and jambs and stretches of the floor.

  It took him three trips, three circuits of parlor to study to dining room to 1940s kitchen and bath, before he saw it.

  And he had to smile a little as he crouched down in the far corner of the parlor.

  What had eventually caught his eye was a scrape across the floorboards, something easily missed--indeed, he had almost ignored it himself. But upon close examination, it clearly pointed in the direction of this eastern juncture of walls and a buildup of dust, sticks, and leaves.

  So unassuming this collection of litter--as if someone had taken a broom and sought to tidy things up, only to lose interest prior to a dustpan being found.

  Angling the flare down to the floor, he brushed aside the debris and regarded the message that had been left for him.

  "Good male," he murmured as he stared at the markings that had been carved in the wood.

  To the unknown eye, it was naught but a random series of whittles and stabs. To him...it was a map of Caldwell that was built on both a previously agreed-upon compass orientation that was not based on true north, and an assortment of symbols that would not be recognized by anyone but the Band of Bastards.

  Xcor had never learned to read. It was not a skill that served him in the Old Country nor in the war, and he was hard-pressed to think himself diminished because of its lacking. But he was stellar with directions, and he also had a photographic memory, something that had developed as a result of him needing to make sure he could recall as many details as he could whenever he was shown or described something.

  He didn't bother to search for weapons. He had never planted any and they would have taken all they had with them.

  Departing through the creaking door, he extinguished the flare by shoving it headfirst into the snow and then he closed his eyes, dematerialized...

  ...and re-formed in a wind tunnel.

  The gusts were so brutal he had to turn away from them, and even with his back to the source, it was too much for him to withstand. But that was what you got when you were nearly a hundred floors up from street level in downtown Caldwell, at the top of the Caldwell Insurance Company building.

  Proceeding with alacrity, he took shelter behind some HVAC blowers that were the size of ambulances, and from there, he was able to gather his orientation, which had to be from the east in order for him to interpret the directions appropriately.

  Except there was a problem that quickly became evident. With so much snow falling, he couldn't see the grid pattern of streets well enough to find the location: Although there were some illuminated landmarks that gave him an idea of the city's layout, he was not going to be able to pinpoint anything from up here.

  His only chance was to get down on ground level and work it out from there. The good news? His fighters would stay in on a night like tonight.

  Like humans, even the slayers would not venture out into this mess. And his bastards had never cared much for the cold.

  If they were still in Caldwell, he would find them this evening.

  THIRTY-NINE

  "What is in that book?"

  The female voice that came over Throe's shoulder was that of a petulant child, even though it emerged from the luscious lips of a thirty-six-year-old vampire who had natural DD breasts, a stomach so flat he could have used it as a dinner plate, and a set of legs that were long enough to wrap twice around his waist.

  Ordinarily, he would have enjoyed an interruption from the likes of her.

  "Throe! I will not be ignored."

  Not tonight.

  As he straightened from the ancient tome he'd brought home from that psychic's, his back cracked, and he was annoyed to find that his neck was so stiff he couldn't look over his shoulder. Instead, he had to turn his entire torso to make eye contact.

  "I am studying," he heard himself say.

  Odd, he thought. It didn't feel as though he'd had a conscious thought to speak those particular words.

  They were correct, however. He had indeed been studying what was written upon the parchment all day long and into the--was it night already? He felt as though he had just sat down.

  "Forgive me." He cleared his throat. "But what time is it?"

  "Nine o'clock! You promised me we would go out."

  Yes, he recalled that. He had done so to get her off his back and into her hellren's bed at dawn in order that he should have privacy with the book.

  Or The Book, as he had begun to think of it.

  And she clearly had taken him at his word, her outfit one that was both revealing and expensive. Roberto Cavalli, given the animal print. And she had on enough gold Bulgari jewelry to make the eighties file a police report.

  "Well?" she demanded. "When are you getting ready?"

  Throe looked down at himself, an odd disassociation taking root as he noted that he had on pants, a shirt, and shoes. "I am dressed."

  "In the same clothes you were wearing last night!"

  "Indeed."

  Throe shook his head a little and looked around. The guest room he recognized, and that was a bit of a relief. Yes, this was where he had been staying since that fire that had destroyed his previous mistress's hellren's mansion. A month he had spent in this navy blue and mahogany suite, with its grand canopied bed, its paintings of hunting scenes, and its highboy and writing desk.

  He had moved in here and promptly assumed a sexual relationship with this under-fucked female, much in the way he had done with his previous mistress: This one was, likewise, mated unto an older male who was incapable of servicing her in bed--and thus Throe, as a "gentlemale of fine bloodline," had been welcomed unto the household, held in esteem and sheltered without any end date.

  Clearly, they knew not the gossip of where he had ended up with the Band of Bastards. Or they were aware of it and had low standards. In any event, it was unwritten that provided he took care of the shellan, he could expect his room, board, and wardrobe needs to be met nicely, and in this case--which had not been true in the previous one--he rather suspected that her mate knew and approved.

  Perhaps the older male was aware that she would stray, and was afraid she would leave him entirely.

  In the glymera, that would be an embarrassment one would not like to endure right before one's grave.

  "Are you unwell?" she asked with a frown.

  He turned back around slowly. He was seated at the writing desk, the one in between the two long windows with their regal drapes and their bubbly old glass. The mansion was large and rambling, filled with antiques
and furnishings far, far too old and distinguished for the likes of its current chatelaine. And one could rather suspect that she would have preferred to be down at the Commodore, in a penthouse overlooking the river that was filled with white leather couches and Mapplethorpe reproductions.

  She rather liked sex. And she was good at it--

  "Throe. Seriously, like, what is the problem here?"

  What had she asked him previously? Oh...right. And he had pivoted in this direction to regard himself in the mirrored upper doors of the desk.

  Though the old glass's mercury backing was pitted and scratched, there was enough of a reflection to verify that, yes, he did look the same as he had before he'd gone unto that psychic's lair. Still with the thick, blond hair, and the classically handsome jaw, and the heavily lashed eyes that he used with quite a lot of success on the females.

  He didn't feel the same, however.

  Something had changed.

  As a ripple of anxiety went through him, he put his palm on the open book, and instantly he was calmed, sure as if the tome were a drug. Like red smoke, perhaps. Or mayhap quite a lot of fine port.

  What had they been discussing--

  "Whatever, I'm going out without you." She pirouetted away in disapproval, her stilettos cursing their way over the carpet as she headed back for the exit. "If you're going to be basic, I'm not going to--"

  --

  Throe blinked and rubbed his eyes. Glancing around, he got to his feet, and then fell back down as his leg muscles cramped. On the second try, he managed to sustain both verticality and ambulation, although the latter was with a herky-jerky step as he went across the fine Oriental carpet to the door his lover had just walked through.

  Opening the way out for himself, he wasn't quite sure what he was going to say to her, but there was no sense in propagating an argument. He was quite in need of her the now, this roof over his head and the sustenance in his belly necessary for him to be free to pursue his true ambitions.

  Hooking a grip on the ornate jamb of his suite, he leaned into the finely appointed corridor and looked left and right. There was no sign of her, so he went down four doors and knocked softly. When there was no reply, he checked again to make sure there was no one else around, and then he entered her peach and cream boudoir.